A Lesson in Goodbye
by fadingtales
Summary: Klaus makes a promise that he cannot fathom to keep and so cheats. Because if there's no room in Caroline's life for him, he'll make room for himself. Oneshot epilogue. Klaroline. Post TVD's 100th episode.
1. A Lesson in Goodbye

_**A Lesson in Goodbye**_

"_As soon as we are done here I'm going to walk away and I'm never coming back…"_

Klaus does not mean to be a liar. At least not to Caroline. He had meant everything he said to her about never coming back. He had believed that all that he needed was the truth, her confession, and no matter what it yielded he would be able walk away. The crushing need to know had outweighed the dread of finding out that she did not care, had never cared, will never care. At least he would be able to have closure, even if it comes in the form of a rejection. He'd be able to erase the doubts that haunted him.

But she did _not _reject him. And for a moment he didn't realize the extent of which he did not want her to reject him. Suddenly everything felt like there was a purpose. That all this chasing and pursuing, it had meant something. But still… he had made a promise and so he thought it enough to just taste her, enough to satisfy his craving. He was a fool to not expect for it to produce more wanting. Because to taste her was to want more of her and he's wanted her for so so long.

He realizes too late that it may have been better had she not told him at all. Had not kissed him the way that she did, with her lips pressing a smile onto his, hands that wrote invisible messages into his skin with their fingertips, and moans that made his hair stand on its ends. Because now the weight of the knowledge feels like lead in his stomach, matched only by the measure of regret he nurses for making a promise he cannot fathom to keep. Because tell him how he can let go when he's only just started. And tell him how he can go back to New Orleans with the taste of her mouth still sweet on his tongue. How he can care about Marcel and the witches, or even his siblings for that matter, when he knows in the end of all the struggle will only be a lonely throne and she is still miles away, possibly in someone else's arms. Tell him how he can live like that.

The crown suddenly feels too difficult a thing to wear when there is nobody at his side. Loneliness has been a familiar companion to Klaus over the years, but suddenly the burden of it is daunting in light of the happiness that Caroline can provide. The happiness that they can have, if only she would give him more than one step forward and two steps back.

He realizes then that he is a creature made of greed and he was a fool to think the mere truth could satisfy him.

And so he cheats. Because if there is no room for him in her life, then he'll have to make his own room.

xxx

Caroline means to move on with her life, as normal as she can possibly make it. She wants the college experience, she wants classes and parties, and to have problems that are no bigger than midterm exams rearing their ugly heads.

And then there was Klaus who fit absolutely nowhere in that scenario. He had walked into her life so wholly unexpectedly. He was chaos and selfishness and all Id and no Ego. He was the dark desires that she wanted at the recesses of her mind; the neuroticism without anything anchoring it. Simply put, he was bad news and she didn't have room for him in her rose tinted plans.

That did not mean she did not want him. There's really no point in lying about it anymore. Whenever they are in the same room the feeling was palpable, as if he was a match and she was gasoline, mere seconds away from scorching. So she pretends to hate him. It's easier this way. He wants too much and Caroline has had a history of not _being _enough that she'd rather not repeat. She wanted to be a simple girl and Klaus was anything but simple.

"_So if you promise to walk away, like you said, and never come back, then yes, I will be honest with you. I will be honest with you about what I want."_

Make it a good goodbye. Because even if she feels something for him, it's not enough to sacrifice everything else. Make it a good goodbye, she had told herself and then she can move on.

She forgets that in order to keep a promise between two people, the other party is supposed to deliver on their end of the deal.

xxx

It starts with a bracelet on her birthday. She's coming home from a party with her new sorority sisters, pretending to be drunk because the other girls just can't hold their liquor, and she just sees it there sitting on her kitchen counter, wrapped discreetly in black wrapping paper and tied with a single white ribbon. And without anything telling her so, she knows it's from him.

She should be mad, furious even that he would violate their promise like this, technicalities be damned, but she's not. In the space of her heart that she's left open for what-if's and what-could-have-been's she's secretly glad he remembered.

From then on a bracelet arrives like clockwork on every single one of her birthdays. They never come with a card, but they are always diamonds so she knows. For the most part, she just ignores them, leaves them untouched in a corner of a drawer by her bedside. How can a college student go around sporting hundred thousand dollar diamond bracelets anyway? Not at Whitmore at least.

When Elena finds her stash on moving day, she just brushes it off saying, "It's not like I have a return address to send them back to. And why let diamonds go to waste?" She knows it's an excuse, but she likes keeping just this small part of him tucked in a carefully compartmentalized part of her life.

The problem occurs when he gets greedy in the way that he does. Annual reminders stop being enough and soon she finds that whenever she is in a tough spot, somehow it gets miraculously resolved. She reckons he's trying to be her guardian angel, but they had made a promise and while she's let things slide before, she doesn't like how often she's finding her thoughts drift towards him. How often she's catching herself wondering where he is, what he's doing, and with who. She doesn't like the feeling of disappointment she gets when her doorbell rings and yet another diamond bracelet is waiting in front of her door and she's assaulted by the ghost of his memory. Or worse, the breathless feeling she gets when she walks into a room and knows that she only _just _missed him, having found the solution to whatever conundrum she was facing sitting on her bed or desk. Even as she moves on with her life, graduating, moving to California, finding new loves and new heartbreaks, he's there. He is pounding on the dam she has built against him and she's starting to feel the fractures.

The break happens her mother dies. Not of anything supernatural, not even of anything resulting from her police work. Elizabeth Forbes dies at the age of 54 from a stroke caused by a brain aneurysm. It was sudden and unexpected. Apparently the Forbes had a history of them, but since Caroline is immortal she doesn't have to worry about that part of her medical history. Somehow this makes it all feel worse.

The funeral is attended by what seems to be the entire town. Caroline lets her neurotic control freak take over and plans everything to the minutest details. It's a wonderful distraction up until the point when it's over and there's nothing left to plan.

Bonnie is the last to leave, asking her for the millionth time if she was okay and if she is sure she doesn't want to stay with her and Jeremy. Caroline shakes her head at the offer, merely mumbling, "I just need to be alone." She regrets this the moment she finds herself surrounded by the ghost of her childhood. She realizes she can't come back to Mystic Falls anymore. Now that her mother is gone, she needs to disappear lest someone starts noticing that the Forbes girl never ever quite grew up.

She's in her old room for what she reckons is the last time, feeling hollow and empty and feeling rather frustrated at the numbness she was feeling, when she notices it: a hummingbird feeder outside her window where one was never there before. There's a note hanging from the bottom of it, attached by a string. When she gets closer she recognizes his script from the memory of it scrawling her name and a thank you for her honesty that seems ages long ago.

It reads, "_Remember that the heartache you feel when your heart pounds is proof that you're human and that you're alive_." For a moment the nostalgia is coming over her in waves and tides. Just then a hummingbird appears and it hovers right where the note is and if Caroline concentrated, she could hear the thrum of its heartbeat competing with the vibration of its wings. It's all too much for her and the numbness she's been feeling for the past few days recedes and she finds her eyes stinging with tears too long held back. She falls to the floor in sobs and wails. She looks a mess, but after it all she feels a sudden lightness to everything. She finally managed to grieve the way she had needed to all this time.

The next day she takes Bonnie up on her offer. She's going to need the witch's help with a locator spell.

xxx

"You said that you were going to walk away," she accuses.

If he's shocked to see her he doesn't show it. She suspects that's because he had orchestrated everything so that she'd come knocking on his door. The idea of falling right into his trap further frustrates her, but she can't just go around pretending he doesn't exist anymore.

"You said that you'd _never _come back."

"I also said that I would wait, no matter how long it takes," he responds without missing a beat. She's irritated by how calm he is and further aggravated by how increasing _not _calm _she _is.

She scoffs at that. "You can't just cherry pick the promises you want to keep."

"I did stay away," he protests.

"Oh? You call inserting yourself in the subtle details of my life staying away?"

"You never saw me and I never came to explicitly see you. You told me that you wanted a normal life and you did, I made sure of that," he is adamant in his argument.

"That doesn't matter. You made me think of you!" Caroline screams, her fists shaking.

He made her think of him and that was the worst offense. He was supposed to be gone; she was supposed to be done, moving on. And she did, she tried, and she thinks she may have even been successful if he didn't cheat, but now she'll never know because he _did _and she couldn't stop thinking about him and about their moment and their "could be" moments and she was already neurotic as it is so that's just not fair.

Klaus is at loss for words after her outburst. And then slowly a small smile begins tugging at his lips and the sight of it pushes Caroline over an edge that she didn't even realize she was on.

"No," she says firmly, shaking her head as he took a step forward. She puts her hand up to distance them. "No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to cheat and then get all smug about it. We had a deal."

"You know what they say about deals with the devil," he says in typical Klaus fashion.

She wants to hit him; she wants to scream at him. How dare he act like he always does, do whatever the hell he pleases and gets away with it? Instead she simply turns away.

That catches his attention and his arrogance is instantly melted.

"Caroline, wait," he pleads, there a tinge of desperation in his tone that is near unrecognizable. But she's already started walking, even as he calls her name again and again. Whatever conversation Klaus has rehearsed in his head for this moment, she's not planning to take part of any of it.

"Caroline, please," the words are a whisper, so soft she almost didn't hear them. "Caroline, I'm begging you. Don't walk away."

Klaus has never said please to anyone, has never _begged _anyone and maybe out of foolish curiosity, it is enough to make her pause.

She turns around to face him. "What?" she demands. "What is there for you to say for yourself?"

"I couldn't do it," he tells her. "I couldn't just walk away after... _that_." He doesn't specify, but she knows exactly what he's referring to.

Her ears flare red at the memory of his mouth on hers, his hand in her hair, trailing down her chest, tongues colliding and stars bursting in her vision. She shuts her eyes tight and shakes her head to clear the memories, but they cling like cobwebs. She didn't notice that Klaus had closed the space between them until she opened her eyes. His hand reaches up to touch her cheek, but the fingertips barely scrape the skin. Somehow it's enough to earn an involuntary hiss of breath from her.

"You feel it too," he says softly, his eyes hooded and his mouth slightly parted.

He wet his lips and Caroline is reminded of how he had made circular patterns on her thighs with his tongue, left bite marks on her flesh and lingering open mouthed kisses all along her belly. Her pulse quickens without her permission.

"Tell me," he says, his voice raspy and rumbling with something not quite _decent _in its tone, "Tell me how I'm supposed to say goodbye," he runs his finger along the side of her throat, down to her shoulders before settling there, "when we've only just begun?"

She doesn't even know how it happened, but suddenly he's leaning in and her mouth parts just as he covers her lips with his. He has one hand on her hip, pulling her up against him, and the other around the nape of her neck, fingers entwining with hair.

His kiss is the melting the kind, where their bodies feel fused together and she doesn't know where he starts and she ends. It's not demanding or forceful, but still possessive all the same. It commands the whole of her attention, and all of her breath. She could lose herself in this kiss she thinks and that's exactly the thought that gives her the power to push him away. She's worked hard to find herself and she doesn't want to lose it yet again to another boy, another possible heartache.

"Don't," she warns. "Don't kiss me like that and make me forget all of my convictions. I can't do this with you."

"Why not?"

"Because you're… you!" she explains lamely. She runs her fingers through her hair impatiently, "I just… can't do this. I don't know what I was thinking coming here. Just… please stop with the gifts. Stop trying to help me in that sly way of yours. Stop trying to make me feel something for you. Just stop."

She turns her back to him, but if this is going to be their last encounter, he's not letting it end like this.

"Would you rather I not fight for you?" she hears his voice call out. "Is that what you want? For me to be like Matt, like Tyler, like all the others who never fought for you?" His voice is harsh and accusatory.

She whips around to face him, her eyes burning. "Don't you dare trying to compare yourself to them."

He regards her seriously, "Why can't it be me?"

His question catches her off guard. For a moment her anger is paused while she contemplates his question.

"Are you kidding me?"

"No," he says, taking a step towards her. "I want to know why it can't be me," he demands.

She answers him without flinching, "You want too much. You want the world and you won't stop at anything to get it. Look at what your ambition has done to your family, to Rebekah, to Elijah. You rob them of their happiness. I won't let you have a chance at robbing mine."

"What if I promise that I can make you happy? What if I promise to give up all up for you, my destructive ambitions, my selfish desires for control, what if I give that up for us to have a chance?"

She laughs at that and it's a mocking laugh. "You can't even keep the promises you've already made," she points out.

"Then what if I don't promise this time. What if I just mean it," he says softly.

Caroline looks him in the eye and knows he's truly sincere about this, or at least he _thinks _he's sincere about it. But she knows better. She shakes her head. "I can't trust you."

"You can!" he argues.

"Tell me how," she retorts. "Give me a good reason why I even should."

"Because I've already done it."

Her eyebrows crinkle in confusion and her mouth opens to ask the incredulous question, "What?"

"I'm not in New Orleans, now am I?" he states, his arms crossing across his chest. She takes a cursory glance at their surroundings, at the humble apartment in the middle of Chicago, strewn with sketches and canvases still wet with paint littering the floor. "Nor am I in Mystic Falls, meddling with your friends. And though your friend, Tyler, came to find me once or twice, if you call him he'll tell you himself that I'm done with the hybrid business."

"So what are you telling me? That you're reformed now?"

"I'm saying I'm trying to make a change."

"You're joking."

He doesn't flinch. Caroline expected a lot of things, but she didn't expect this.

"So what now? Have you been rescuing puppies and adopting kittens?" her tone drips sarcasm.

"I gave up actively trying to steal control over New Orleans and plotting the demise of several of our mutual acquaintances, that doesn't mean I've suddenly become a saint,' he drawls in equal sarcastic measure.

Caroline snorts.

"But I'm trying." Klaus sighs and steps towards her once more. "Consider this my chance to try to acquit myself." He reaches out and pulls her hand into his. Against her better judgment, she lets him. He runs his thumb over her knuckles and she braces herself for the shivers that come.

She regards his seriously, her mind a convoluted mess. "Is this for real?"

"If you want it to be," he replies.

Suddenly everything about him in her mind makes a mental shift. She had never expected this kind of behavior from him. The temper tantrums, the fatalistic threats, the megalomaniac plots she's used to. But this? She feels like she's just stepped into an alternate universe. Suddenly the reasons that she can't be with him are being compromised. If he's not the evil baddie that she makes him out to be, then what is he? What can he be for her? And what does he expect from her that he'd be willing to give up everything?

"You'll hate me," she says. "Even if I agree and we give this a shot… Giving up everything… you're going to hate me for it. One day you're going to realize that I was not the substitute for the entire world, that I'm not enough, and you're going to not forgive me for giving it all up. You're going to realize that I'm not worth it."

"Maybe," he says, because he doesn't sugarcoat anything. "But right now I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't try to convince you that you are."

He brushes an errant strand of hair behind her ear, his expression solemn once again. How many times has her image haunted him? At times he feels so maddened by the emotions he has for this girl, this baby vampire with barbie hair and big blue eyes, that he was sure that if he ever did see her again it would be easier to kill her on the spot than it would be to kiss her. Because to kiss her was to condemn himself. Because to kiss her would mean he wouldn't ever want to stop and that romantic nonsense was not for the likes of him.

He swallows hard and she knows that this is as hard for him as it is for her. What he's done… what he is proposing. He's giving up everything, going against his very own nature and instincts… for _her_.

She opens her mouth to say something, of what she's not quite sure. Maybe a protest, some kind of argument, but it never gets said. He stills her with a finger against her lips.

"Save your retorts," he tells her. "I know you have a million reasons at the tip of your tongue on why this is a terrible idea and I get it because you're right. I am terrible with promises. So I won't make any now. I won't promise you that I will be a reformed person because I don't know if I can be yet or if I even really want to be. I won't promise that I will not disappoint you or that I won't go back to my old ways. I won't even promise that my convictions will stay the same tomorrow. And most of all, I won't promise you a forever because forever is a very long time, love, and you'll learn that soon enough. But if I'm willing to try and if I, of all people, can give up on trying to own the world, won't you give me a chance to at least try to show you what it has to offer to you?"

Caroline bites her lip, her eyes threatening to spill for inexplicable reasons. His words echo those of the past. A whole world out there waiting for her._ Great cities, and art, and music. Genuine beauty._ It seems like they're doomed to reliving this same quandary over and over again, unless she ends it now. The choice is dangling in right in front of her and she's torn between the future that she had preconceived for herself all these years and the future that Klaus is offering her, for the second time.

Without allowing any more time to second guess herself Caroline raises on her tip toes, closes her eyes and presses a kiss to Klaus's lips. It tastes like possibility.

**A Long A/N: **This oneshot was rather difficult to write since I was trying to keep it as close to canon as possible, but also make Klaroline happen in a way that felt genuine and true to how I felt about their characters. It was hard for me to make the decision to write Klaus as willing to give up everything, his ambitions and greed for power and control, for Caroline. Because so much of his ambition is part of who he is. But the things he wants and the things Caroline wants don't always quite mesh. So that was really tough and I hope it shows that Klaus really struggled with this decision himself. I left the ending here as optimistic, but after I let it sit for a while I became frustrated with it because it also felt unfinished and I really wanted to see where Klaus and Caroline would go. So I wrote an epilogue, which I will post as the 2nd chapter. Word of warning the epilogue will not make everyone happy. For me, it felt satisfying to write because if this were to fit the canon narrative, I felt like this would do them justice. So if you're happy with the optimistic ending, stop here. If you're not satisfied and you just need to see more, see the klaroline relationship go beyond the "start", then continue on. But I warn you it is a bittersweet one.


	2. An Epilogue

_**An Epilogue.**_

He knows she's waiting for him and he's late, purposefully. It's the worst possible time to be late and he knows that he's not helping his case any, but he can't face her. Not just yet. He's standing outside the door, knowing that she's on the other side waiting, and he can't bring himself to turn the knob. He wonders if she can hear his breathing and his heart thumping from the other side. If she knows he's stalling and she's letting him.

He can only stand out there for so long and so he does it. He takes the plunge and twists the knob and walks inside.

She can tell he's on edge when he gets in by the way his jaw clicks, the way his leg bounces with an irregular beat. She notices that he looks everywhere, but he doesn't look at her or the pile of luggage besides her.

They don't say anything for a long moment, he's too busy pacing about and looking anywhere but at her. Finally he saunters over, pulls the chair out from across from her and sits down.

"You're leaving," he states, pouring himself a glass of water from the jug at the center. He tries to sound nonchalant about it, but he's not at all successful. "You're really leaving."

She nods her head and tries to give him a small smile, but she just can't seem to manage it.

"You don't forgive me," his voice is hard and harsh, but at least this time he looks at her.

Once again she shakes her head only to contradict herself and saying, "Yes. I don't forgive you. Not this time."

She can tell he is clenching his jaw again.

"I _shouldn't _forgive you," she tells him. "I thought what we had would've been enough, but it's not. You hurt people I care about. I shouldn't forgive you," she takes a breath and glances upwards as if the answer to all their problems were written on the ceiling. "But that's the problem. I do. I've done it before and if I stay I will do it again. But that's not _right_. The things you want… it's not what I want."

"I really tried you know," he whispers. "You made me happy and I tried… it's just that I can't… I thought I could, but I just can't-"

"I know," she says, interrupting him. Because she does. When she found him in Chicago that whole lifetime ago she had believed him when he said he would try and give up everything. That if he could give up the world then she should give him a chance to show it to her and she did. She gave them a chance and she doesn't regret any of it.

For a good long while they were good together. The happiest she's ever been. And she believed with all her heart that he had been happy too. If they were normal humans that would have been a lifetime of bliss, comparable to any love story. It would've had a happy ending. But it's like he said. Forever is a long long time and they both still have miles of it stretched ahead of them. He simply cannot keep fight so hard against his instincts, against his inclination to survive the only way he knows how, even that means eventually pushing her away. And she can't keep turning her cheek, let him get away with everything that he does when it goes against the very core of her being.

She understands now why people called vampires the damned. The werewolves and the witches may have their powers, but they're mortal. They have a chance to make their choices and live with it. It's their one life to live. Vampires do not have that luxury. Nothing lasts forever because forever is endless.

"In the end… I really wasn't enough was I?"

He reaches over and clasps his hand over hers, just in time for the tear to land on the back of it. When she looks up she can see his own eyes glistening. His face is etched with tension lines and the way he is clasping her hand is like the way a drowning man would hold on to a life saver.

"_I wanted you to be…_" he whispers and she knows he means it, that he had wished it, tried so hard for love to be enough. Despite what the storybooks say, love does not always conquer all. That still doesn't mean it wasn't worth it.

With all her willpower she pulls her hand out from under his. His hand forms a fist where her hand should be. He's squeezing so hard his knuckles are white. "I love you," he says, his eyes still locked on the place where her hand used to be.

"I know," she says back softly, the tears now gone from her face. Her eyes have hardened he notices. She's different now. The years together was not just an experiment in changing him. She did not come out to this the same bright eyed eighteen year old Caroline that he first knew. She's not full of doubt and indecision anymore and he knows now that this meeting was more for his benefit than it is for her.

She looks to her watch and stands up, he follows suit.

"Where are you planning on going?" He's stalling. Grasping for any excuse to prolong her presence.

She breathes a deep breath and tilts her head to the side a little whimsically.

"I don't know. Somewhere. The world's wide open. You taught me that," she says with a smile, it reaches her eyes this time. "I can go anywhere."

She leans forward and kisses him. It tastes of nostalgia, of all the kisses they've ever shared in all the years, decades, they've been together. It's Caroline eating sushi for the first time in Tokyo , it's Klaus smoking cigarettes in Paris, it's the first breath of air they take together in Rome. It's also the first time Caroline manages to say I Love You in so many words and it's the last time Klaus didn't say it back even though he does. It means Thank You and I'm Sorry and Goodbye. It's all their up's and down's and it's almost too much to bear so they break apart.

"I love you, too." She says it simply, without dramatics, as mere statement of fact, like if she were to declare that the sky is blue or birds fly. She didn't need to embellish it with pretty words, she knew that it was the truth and so did he. They loved each other. They knew it in their bones, in their blood, and no one could take that away.

This has been a hard lesson in goodbye, but it's the second one and this time they both know it'll stick.


End file.
